that if Fanny cost her every penny she had, at least the child was worth
what she spent on her. To a superficial observer, Fanny would probably
have appeared merely an attractive girl, of Jane's willowy type, with
something of Jane's trite prettiness of feature; but to Gabriella, who
suffered from a maternal obliquity of vision, she seemed both brilliant
and beautiful. Of course she was selfish, but this selfishness, as long
as it was clothed in her youth and loveliness, was as inoffensive as the
playfulness of a kitten. Her face was round and shallow, with exquisite
colouring which veiled the flatness and lack of character in her
features. Above her azure eyes her hair, which was not plentiful, but
fine and soft, and as yellow as ripe corn, broke in a shining mist over
her forehead. All her life, by being what she was, she had got, without
effort, everything that she wanted. She had got dolls when she wanted
dolls; she had got Miss Ludwell's expensive school when she wanted an
expensive private school; she would get the house in West Twenty-third
Street to-morrow, and when she began to want love, she would get it as
easily and as undeservedly as she got everything else. She was very
expensive, but, like the flowers on the table and the spotless damask
and the lace in Gabriella's sleeves, she was one of her mother's
luxuries to be paid for by additional hours of work and thought.

"Wasn't Archibald with you?" inquired Gabriella, while she pushed the
chairs into place and tidied the room.

"He stopped at the library. There's his ring now. I'll open the door."

She ran out, and Gabriella, with the tablecloth in her hand, stood
waiting for Archibald to enter. In her eager expectancy, in the wistful
brightness of her eyes, in the tender quivering of her lips, she was
like a girl who is awaiting a lover. Every evening, after her day's